Settlement Eases Rules for Religious Clubs at Schools

Student-run religious, political and philosophical clubs will probably have an easier time organizing at area high schools as a result of a federal court settlement last week between an Alpine student and the Grossmont Union High School District, attorneys and educators say.

In settling a lawsuit filed in June, the school district revised its student club policies to make explicit the right of such student-initiated clubs to meet on campuses during non-classroom times, either before or after school or during lunch.

The U.S. District Court settlement incorporates the revised policies, which will now allow religious and other “advocacy” clubs the same rights as other non-curriculum clubs, such as ski or chess groups, to use bulletin boards and make activity announcements in classrooms, and to raise funds and hand out meeting notices.

Abe Hayhurst, a 16-year-old Granite Hills High School student, sued the district in June for $25,000 in damages because his religious study group, The Voice of Christ, had been allowed to meet only under more restrictive conditions in numbers of meetings per week and without ready access to the school’s publicity forums.

Hayhurst alleged that the district was violating the 1984 Equal Access Act, written by Congress to prohibit secondary schools that receive federal funds from discriminating against student organizations based on the religious, philosophical or political content of their speech.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June, 1990, in deciding a controversy at an Omaha, Neb., high school, ruled 8 to 1 that the act allows student religious groups to meet on public school property during non-instructional hours.

In agreeing to the settlement, Hayhurst received $2,000 for legal costs.

“The school district felt it should resolve the matter quickly,” said attorney Richard Currier, who represented the district. “It was just a simple matter of making a few adjustments.”

Currier’s firm, Littler, Mendelson, Fastiff & Tichy, represents more than 10 school districts in San Diego County and conducts a series of annual legal seminars every fall for the more than 40 districts under the umbrella of the San Diego County Office of Education.

“I suspect that this will be one of the first topics,” Currier said, adding that school districts “believe in preventive law,” especially as a way to avoid costly litigation. “I think that districts might want to check their policies” for compliance.

The San Diego Unified School District, the county’s largest and the nation’s eighth-largest urban system, has had a longstanding policy of allowing student-run religious groups to meet on campus once a week as long as they are voluntary and student-initiated, said Melanie Petersen, deputy general counsel for the district. But San Diego’s three-page policy does not specifically address the issues of access to bulletin boards, classroom announcements or fund raising.

“We’ve been reading about this issue, and of course will look again at our own policies,” Petersen said, adding that she is aware of a couple of student Bible study groups that meet on the campuses of some city high schools.

Hayhurst’s attorney, Gerald W. Hokstad, said the settlement was reached because the Grossmont district “realized it was wrong, that we were going to win, and win big.”

“But (the district) was cooperative and acted in good faith, and it immediately acted to bring their policies into compliance with the Equal Access Act. . . . People have been overly cautious when it comes to religion.

“The purpose of our suit was to send the message to other districts, to make sure the word gets out, that they can’t discriminate among student groups based on content,” Hokstad said.

The parties involved said the right of equal access also means that students could form Republican or Democratic party study groups, or even Nazi or Ku Klux Klan student organizations.

“Theoretically, they (Nazis or the KKK) could exist on campus, because it’s hard to deny them on the basis of political content as long as they don’t violate school rules,” Hokstad said. “But those are hypotheticals, and I think that students who wanted to form a Nazi-type of group would quickly be ostracized by the rest of a campus.”

Attorney Currier said: “The issue of a group like the KKK is always a question that comes up. But I think districts have some flexibility in organizations that have a known history of violent behavior or violations, or that have advocated violence.

“My general impression is that courts are more willing to allow public school systems to be more restrictive” regarding such groups than the leeway given colleges and universities.

Michael Eddy, Grossmont’s director for administrative services, said he does not expect a lot of student group requests as a result of the new policy.

“We will deal with every request on a case-by-case basis” and could still prohibit groups considered to have “a precedence for violence,” he said.

San Diego Unified’s Petersen said the district “would be willing to go to the mat (legally) to oppose” any student request for a group that had a discriminatory or violent basis to its philosophy.

“I don’t think the (federal) act was intended to allow clubs with a specific discriminatory intent or advocacy of violence” to have representation on campus, she said.